


Stucky Snippets: The Unfinished Chronicles

by ladyllyn



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Snippets
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-09
Updated: 2019-04-09
Packaged: 2020-01-07 08:02:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18406493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyllyn/pseuds/ladyllyn
Summary: For years I've been off and on writing snippets of ideas and scenes and stories for these two crazy lovebirds, and I thought I would brave the censure of the world and just put them out there, see if anyone can get any joy out of them. And who knows, maybe I'll continue/finish a few? Will post each separately as a chapter, and will add anything new I write down in my five free seconds a day. Hope you enjoy. ^_^





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Drop me a line if you enjoyed anything. Also, please note that these are not edited or reviewed really, and so might have some errors. I would LOVE to fix them, so please let me know if you see anything. 
> 
> Also, be ye warned! Most of these are indulgence pieces, and so include ridiculous things like fluff, fix-it!, tropes, etc.

Chapter 1: A Soundtrack to War

Steve had a hard time washing away the filter of memory from his mind’s eye. He could remember this building as it stood in 1944; the lights were dimmed against the eyes of German pilots, and the faint lamplight threw only the barest of glows against the brick. The cobblestone street as quiet and deserted, ad the Howling Commandos were able to travel from shadow to shadow without anyone being the wiser. 

Dum-Dum and Morita went ahead, whispering the code words and holding the door for the others. The Captain came last, the limp form of Bucky draped across his arms. 

Steve’s arms felt heavy with that weight still, even in the broad daylight of the present day. Sam had gone ahead, opening the wide oak doors. The old French song echoed louder now as he waited for Steve, eyes concerned. 

“I’m fine,” he motioned for Sam to go on in, glancing at the second floor windows before following. 

Sam always questioned the locals first, brandishing a SHIELD snapshot of the Winter Soldier. Somehow Steve’s hands always found their way to the faded picture of Bucky that lived in his pocket. This man, smile crooked under his officer’s hat, wa the man that he was looking for. The Winter Soldier was a facade, an iron mask forced on friend.Steve was sure of it. 

He saw that Sam’s conversation was going well--no need for Captain America-- so he settled down into a corner booth, dark leather and oak smelling of stale beer and cigar smoke. Not much changed in 70 years, he mused. This pub must even be playing records rather than CDs, as Steve heard the tell-tale scritch swish of a needle scratching on vinyl. Edith Piaf again spread her warm tones. Steve looked up the little staircase tucked in the opposite corner and couldn't decide whether the Universe hated or loved him. 

As soon as the keeper of the Inn (as it had been in 1944) took a good look at Steve and unconscious man in his arms, she motioned them up her tiny back staircase, lighting their way to to a tiny attic bedroom tucked up under the rafters. The Captain lay his cargo on the faded quilt and backed away to let Morita do a once over. He stayed, though, calm and out of the way, but there. 

He almost wished he hadn’t when Morita stripped off Bucky’s jacket to reveal nothing but damp red cloth. Steve couldn’t see where the wound was, but this amount of blood made his stomach clench with worry. Their medic cursed softly as he peeled back the sodden fabric, but the pale, prone form on the bed didn’t twitch or moan. Steve wondered if you throw up from nerves. 

That sick twist in his stomach only hardened as they finally got a look at Bucky’s abdomen. A jagged puncture wound leaded a steady stream from just under his last rib. 

“Seems to have missed the organs, Cap. He’d be dead otherwise. But..it’s been a long time and he’s lost a lot of blood.” Morita worked steadily, hands sure, buthi eyes were shadowed. “If he makes it through tomorrow, he should be OK. Only worry then is infection.” 

Steve heard what he didn’t say. More soldiers died from infection than they do from almost anything else. 

“Bucky’s strong, he’ll make it.” 

Morita nodded. “Yeah, Cap. Someone will need to stay with him--change his bandages, check for fever.” 

Steve nodded, silencing his men’s protests with a look at them, gathered doggedly in the narrow hallway. “You all are tired, go rest.” 

They all nodded, offering to take over if he needed relief or rest. He accepted their attention with a wan smile, ushering them all out with a pat or a handshake. Then, in the low, flickering light, he took Bucky’s pale hand and settled down for the long watch ahead. 

The scratch of the needle brought him again into the present. Sam was by his side, and had been for a while judging by the state of this empty whisky glass. He watched the bar, not Steve, and the Captain was grateful for the privacy. 

“What did you find out?” 

Sam, now well used to his wandering memory, didn’t startle. Reports were right; he was here. Bartender said he played La Vie en Rose for hours and then asked to see a room upstairs. Stayed up there for a while, apparently.” 

Steve clutched the edge of the table so hard that it complained with a loud, sharp creak. “The attic room?” 

“Yeah.” Sam’s eyebrows rose minutely. “That mean something?” 

He breathed out a heavy breath. “I think it might.” 

Sam smiled. “Finally some good news. You ready to check it out?” 

Steve looked to the crooked little staircase, only made sturdier with age. “Give me a minute, Sam.” He said quietly,” Let me finish the song.” 

Bucky didn’t stir through several changes of bandages and the sputtering of dying candles. In the wan light looked like a ghost, translucent and pale. Steve’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. 

Eventually the Inn opened its doors, and in the warm morning light, Steve listened to muffled morning greetings and the busy work of the kitchen. A young girl, blushing, offered him food at some point. Even knowing that it was rude, Steve didn’t look up when he said no. He must have drifted at some point. He woke to bright light slanting into his eyes, and Bucky's warm hand curled into his. Steve raised hopefully eyes, but Bucky was still asleep. 

“He woke up briefly, ‘bout an hour ago. Insisted that we, and I quote, ‘not wake the dumb brute up, because he probably hasn’t slept in days.’” Morita lounged in the doorway, looking relaxed, but Steve could see the dark rings under his eyes. 

“Shameless abuse of rank,” he smiled, gently squeezing his friend’s fingers. “How is he?” 

Morita shrugged. “The bleeding has finally stopped, but the blood loss has made him weak. He will probably sleep for at least another day.” 

“Infection?” 

“No,” the medic breathed out a sigh, “not so far.” 

“Thank God.” 

“No need to thank the big guy,” came a rough voice, “I did all the work.” 

Steve turned to see blue eyes and a tired smile. 

The song ended with a sudden switch to annoying electro-pop, and Steve stood with a smile. “Let’s go, Sam.” 

The room had changed, of course. It was still a bedroom, strangely enough (perhaps the barkeep lived here, Steve mused), but the quaint quilts and wooden dressing table were gone. Here was a cramped metal bed, hardly larger than an army cot, made up with blue sheets, and across the room there was a cracked mirror. He wondered if Bucky had broken it, and the thought broke the thin bubble of his happiness. 

“Not much to search here. I’ve had tents bigger than this.” Sam opened drawers with careful intent, despite his words. Steve lifted the mattress, and then the bed itself, box springs shrieking. “Show off.” 

He smiled. “Just trying to be thorough.” 

Their search was over in a few short minutes. Nothing. Steve felt hollow. He sat heavily on the bed, ignoring its shrieks again. Sam kept idly checking the same drawers. Just as Steve was about to get up, he spotted a piece of yellowed paper in the rafters. He stood, stretching to reach it. 

“Got something?” 

“Think so, give me a sec.” He finally reached the paper, bringing it down with a yank. He nearly dropped it, when he was what it was. 

Sam waited a tactful moment, watching Steve stare at the small square in his large hands. When the silence had stretched too long and Steve had started to look like a statue of himself, Sam cleared his throat. “What is it?” 

“A 1939 pressing of La Vie en Rose.”


	2. Chapter 2: We all know Bucky should Swing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky rediscovers Swing Dance, and it's a thing of beauty that we all deserve--especially him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, mostly unedited. Help me fix anything you notice by dropping me a line.

He had no way of knowing that he and the Black Widow followed the same advice about running--don’t. But they did, and so he found himself in New York, walking surreally familiar streets. He had cut his hair, but not to match the portrait in The Smithsonian, just a longish modern style he could slick back. 

He had almost cried when the barber sold him pomade. 

His clothes were new, too, stolen from a small store in New York. Jeans, a loose collared shirt, a hat or two. No one ever have him a second glance. He was anyone, everyone, no one. 

Walking helped him resist memories that pushed, hot like an infection, at the fore of his mind. If he opened them everything would come out and he felt like glass thinking of it, shuddering, ready to crack. So he walked, wearing out two pairs of these ridiculous modern sneakers before giving in and braving one of the thousands of ‘vintage’ stores in New York to buy a pair of loafers he he could have danced in, back… 

He slammed that door and walked on. 

At night, or early morning, really, his wandering was too obvious Even in New York there were no crowds hiding him at 2 am. So he found a small apartment that overlooked the river, paid for it with a Hydra account no one had found yet, and spent most nights staring at the lights. He didn’t sleep; dreams were too close to memories. 

After several weeks the weather turned and he found an old leather jacket that reminded him of- 

Another door, another mile. 

He had a coffee in hand, sipping absently, walking to the unconscious respiration of the city-- in, beat, out, beat--when he heard American Patrol. Before he had made the decision he was in front of a large plate glass window, proclaiming the space Uptown Swing. 

He was toe-tapping, feet swinging, and the music and the movement were like pain, like sharp joy, like sudden freedom from crushing weight. The song changed, and then another. He watched a short woman with honey-colored hair change a record. Multiple people were dancing and he felt it as they swung out, flipped, danced away and then together again. None of them were very good, but for the woman, but they were all smiling and sweating and glowing. He ached. 

As people walked to the door, he walked away. But slowly, reluctantly. 

The next day his brain itched with familiar rhythms so he walked the other way, downtown, away. At midday he as in the park, flexing his gloved fingers to the Andrews Sisters. So he gave up and let his feet carry him back Uptown. His gut churned but it was a pleasant warmth in his chest when he saw the little studio again and he thought--Surely, one nice thing. Just one. 

A brassy, big gand number was blaring out the door. He didn’t recognize the tune--which was a bitter kind of relief--but he recognized the Lindy Hop moves. This must have been a more advanced class; the honey haired instructor was dancing with a tall redheaded man, demonstrating some lifts and flips. 

His fingers gripped and released, gripped and released and he wondered if the scientists who had made his left arm had been proud of the delicate calibrations, the fine tuning of the plates that would allow him to lift a partner in dance. 

He knew they had been proud that the arm was strong enough to crush bone. 

Nausea roiled across his stomach but he blinked hard and focused on the dancers, their smiles and swift feet. 

Someone jostled him from behind, laughing, floral perfume strong on the breeze, and continued into the studio. The teacher waved, called a greeting, and turned. Her eyes met his, brown eyes warm even through the glass. For a moment he was afraid she knew who and what he was. But she just smiled and turned back to her partner. 

When the song changed he knew what was coming and yet didn’t move. 

As soon as she was out the door she asked in a softly husky voice, “Do you like to dance?” 

“I used to,” he kept his eyes on the dancers. 

A beat of silence, two. He glanced over and she was smiling. “You have good rhythm,” she said, nodding to his fingers, still tapping the casement. “You should come in and reconnect.” Then, softly, “it always makes me feel better.” Her smile didn’t waver but her eyes were sad and he wondered what miseries his face and body must have reflected. 

“I’m not sure I...I’m not sure I can anymore.” 

“You never really forget,” he flinched and hoped she didn’t see, “but if you’re self conscious I offer beginner’s classes on Tuesday nights and private lessons every afternoon between 2 and 4. Here,” she reached into the pocket of her pants--high waisted like the girls used to favor-- and pulled out a card, “our scheduling information’s on the website.” 

He took the card with his right and her smile was warm again. “I hope you join us--lots of good people here. Lots of good feelings.” She went inside again, dancing almost immediately. 

He almost followed her in, but made himself step back. Maybe tomorrow. Maybe. 

On a Tuesday two weeks later the weather finally made the turn to Fall. He didn't really feel the cold--it was nothing to what it had been--but he ducked into a coffee shop, ordered an Americano just for the humor of it, and sipped it as he made his way to Uptown Swing. He hadn’t been back, but in the short snatches of sleep he’d managed to catch he’d been in a dance hall, heart beating and happy, light. He figured if just being outside the place helped this much, maybe he would go in and actually try a dance. 

The door didn’t chime, at least not above the Count Basie playing, but the moment he was in the honey haired woman turned. “You came!” she said and waved. “You can hang your things over there by the counter then come join us, we’re just getting started.” 

He nodded and shrugged off his jacket, hurrying to join the class. He put himself at the back, with a clear view of the room and his flour classmates. He was the only one without a partner. The music switched to a Johnston Rag and the honey-haired woman began to move, just simple two steps and turns but before he could think he was moving and for the first time in 70 years, since the howling drop, he felt like he knew his own body. 

What must have been an hour passed. Angie, as the woman had introduced herself, led the group through simple steps and swing outs, encouraging the couples, but all she ever had for Bucky was a smile. He wasn’t following her steps, the music and his heart too alive to go slowly. During a Miller number she stepped into the circle of his arms and they danced a simple improvisation, no steps and no pattern but the light beat. He didn’t even know he was smiling until his cheeks burned with the stretch. 

This must be what it felt like to be yourself. 

The class ended with Angie giving everyone a hug and Bucky held on longer than he’d touched anyone since Steve… 

Liquid ice ran down his spine and he stepped away, eyes on the floor. He knew Angie was watching, but she didn't say anything. The other couples left. 

“You’re very good,” Angie said. 

Bucky tried to unlock his muscles. “I used to dance a lot. Guess you never really forget.” 

There was a smile in her voice. “Obviously not.” There was a beat of silence, two, and he shuffled his feet, ready to flee. “I’m glad you came. You seemed happier.” 

His breath shuttered and his eyes burned. “Yes.” 

Suddenly she was next to him, a hand on his shoulder, and he must be losing his edge because he hadn’t heard her move. “Dance is really amazing, isn’t it? Sometimes I only feel like myself when I’m dancing.” 

He didn’t know if it was the hour of freedom, her kind touch, or the heavy fatigue he always carried, but he started to cry. Angie was stronger than she looked. Her arms pulled him down until he was hunched over her, crying into her hair. He sobbed so hard and long he thought he might throw up. 

Angie didn’t say a word, just ran warm hands up and down his shoulders. When he had quieted again she put him in his coat, knotted his scarf and walked him to the door. “Do you want me to call anyone?” 

“No.” 

“Will you come back next week?” 

He shouldn’t. He would make himself predictable, show more weakness than he already had. “Yes.” 

She smiled. “We have a more advanced class, earlier. You could stay for both.” 

“Yes, Ok.” 

“Great, see you then.” She squeezed his hand, studied his face, and then let go. 

He was halfway back to the apartment before he realized she hadn’t charged him. When he got to the apartment he sat down at the chipped little wooden table he’d picked up from an alley and wrote furiously in his notebook for hours. The sun came up, weak grey light creeping over the windowsills, before he fell asleep. 

He woke screaming and sweating, the ghost of a woman bleeding out from his bullet and he finally gave into his nausea. He remembered killing her, years ago, a lifetime ago, but couldn’t remember her name. He heaved until he was coughing blood. 

The El made his throat close up so he hoofed it to Avengers tower. At first he had avoided the place but he must be ten kinds of fool because at least once a week he camped out at the small coffee place a bit down the street and just stared at the tower. He had never seen Steve--Captain America--go in or out. But surely he wasn’t in DC anymore? 

Bucky frowned down into his Americano (the barista knew his order by now. Dangerous.). What would he even do if he did see him? “Hi Stevie, sorry I tried to kill you, but at least I remember now!” That would save him from being taken in, surely. Or maybe he would tell Steve what he’d done and the big lug would realize he wasn’t worth it.  
*****  
He lingered in the doorway, keeping his back in the winter air. The room was warm and he could feel sweat beginning to bloom up under his scarf but he didn’t want to step in, didn’t want to take off his coat and gloves and become part of the riotous crowd before him, part of the noise, part of the music, part of the joyous abandon of the dance. 

“Bucky!” a voice called from across the room and he smiled automatically, a trained nicety, but only half-heartedly searched the room for the source of the voice. It did pull him in though, and he came slowly, feeling heavy and tired but strangely glad, though even that emotion was muted. 

“Bucky!” The voice called again and Elizabeth swanned over to him, twirling to him in a flair of skirts and open arms. “You came, dearest! I’m so glad my best partner is here!” 

He murmured a greeting and accepted the hug, weakly raising his arms to her back, carefully gentle. She must have sensed his hesitation because when they pulled back her face was softer, and her eyes were concerned. “You ready to dance, handsome?” 

“Oh Liz, I don’t know. I might just watch tonight.” 

A voice sounded from his left and it took every bit of his hard won self control to not immediately strike out. “Like you ever ‘just watch’. You’re already dancing.” Lisa was smiling at him, pointing to his feet. 

They were already tapping. He smiled a bit at both of them, these women who danced and laughed with him and had no idea who he was, what he had done, and suddenly the guilt was suffocating. His face must have shown it--surely he must look tired, he was always so tired-- and he saw the ladies exchange a glance. 

“Yep, that it’s, it’s decided. Let’s go dance.” Lisa took one arm, Elizabeth the other and they dragged him to the floor. 

The music and the dance released him in a way nothing else did, not even sleep, and he spun and jumped and turned out and in and maybe even laughed and smiled, keeping a beat or two ahead of the past. His jacket ended up flung somewhere, and as the songs played on he rolled up his sleeves, unbuttoned a few buttons, let a curl of hair fall onto his forehead. He remembered being like this, hot and light, before the war, when Steve-- 

He missed a step and nausea rose again, thinking about before. But Elizabeth was in his arms before he could gag, twirling him away again. Thank God for these women, he thought. 

And stumbled again, freezing. 

Steve. Steve was here. 

He and Falcon, Sam Wilson, were standing just inside the door, by the studio’s counter. Steve’s mouth was quirked in that wistful smile Bucky remembered, that wry expression shining at him from the sides as he twirled and bopped with the girls. Steve never danced, never tried. 

Vaguely, from behind a wall of static-panic, Bucky wondered if he would try now, now that he was in the body he’d always been meant to have. 

Sam laughed, Steve looked down at him, nodding at something, and then looked up again at the dancers. Bucky could see the moment Steve spotted him. He saw his mouth open, saw it shape his name, saw Steve’s hands, both of them, reaching for him. 

Suddenly the ice was broken and Bucky’s body flew into action, flinging himself through the circle of dancers, pushing his body through, desperately in flight without even making a conscious decision. Get away, have to get away, can’t let him see me, not like this, not ever. 

But the back door was so far away, and Steve was so fast now, and Bucky would never hurt these people. He never wanted to hurt anyone again. He careened down a hallway and heard “Bucky! Bucky!” shouted after him but kept going, bumping walls and knocking over pictures, reaching for the fire door he could see ahead of him. The alarm shrieked as he pushed it open and a thousand images flooded his mind, a thousand sensations ripping at his insides and threatening to spiral him down but he clenched his teeth hard, tasting blood, and kept running. 

He had been too slow. He felt rather than heard the large body behind him and knew he was cornered before Steve’s arms wrapped around him and that superhuman frame tackled him to the pavement. “Oh my God, Bucky, Bucky please, I don’t want to fight, wait, just wait,” Steve was babbling in that achingly familiar way, the nervous habits of a Steve before Erskine. 

His face was wet and he didn’t know if he was crying or sweating, and all he could do was collapse, sick and exhausted. “Steve,” he breathed, and the body atop him stilled with a sharp breath. 

Blue eyes locked with his. “Buck?” 

“Yeah, buddy, I’m here,” he said and sighed, closing his eyes. 

They were both breathing hard, sharp like sobs, and now he didn’t know if Steve was crying, either. 

~~~~~   
Earlier that day: 

Sam sometimes just needed a break, to take a walk through the sunshine to a place where nobody knew him and nobody needed him. He wasn’t used to New York, probably never would be, but after a week staying with Steve he felt he knew enough to get around and take a walkabout by himself. 

He found himself down on the East Side (?) on a less busy side street lined with charming shops and various businesses. There were many other people on the sidewalk, this was New York after all, but few enough that he had a bit of space, that he could stop here and there, watching the flow of the city, checking in on a bakery, a used bookstore, a weird store that seemed to sell only lamps. White people were crazy, he thought to himself, smiling, and walked on. 

Before he knew it his feet were tapping to a lively beat coming from a door open in defiance of winter's cold, and he stopped to enjoy the jazzy tones. He looked through the plate glass window, immediately recognizing the dancing style. He was pretty sure Steve didn’t dance, but it was hard not to think of him, watching the men and women swinging and jiving to what sounded like a good Duke Ellington bit. He would pay damn good money to see Steve throw a girl through the air like that. 

A flash of a handsome face, a streak of dark hair. “Holy shit,” he breathed, not sure whether to be angry, scared, or just bemused at the sheer fucking gall of the universe. He tried to be chill about it, leaning casually against the wall, making sure to rest his gaze on everyone and not for too long. A woman with honey-colored hair spun to the front of the class, arms around a tall, broad man and he knew, could see that face. 

It was smiling. Oh my god. 

Sam turned, casual as can be, and made a beeline back to Steve’s apartment. There was no way he could do this alone. The Winter Soldier, he just couldn’t call him Bucky as Steve insisted, had damn near killed Steve, and Sam was secure enough in his own abilities to admit that he was out of his depth here. 

In fact, as he power-walked to the nearest intersection, arm already up to call a taxi, he reflected that perhaps Steve was over his head, too. If he told him that he had seen Sergeant Barnes, alive, happy, dancing of all things, then Steve would charge right in and Barnes would spook. He would run again. 

Someone had to be smart about this, and that someone was Sam. By the time the taxi released him into the streets of Brooklyn, he had a plan. He let himself into the building and walked up the stairs normally, knowing Steve would have heard him by now. Cool, play it cool Wilson, he thought to himself, but his heart was racing with the thought that Barnes could be gone by now, off to wherever, lost again to the world and they would never be this close again. This was a goddamned miracle as it was. 

“Hey Steve,” he called out as he entered the apartment. 

“Hey Sam,” he heard called back from the living room. There was Steve just as he’d left him, giant frame hunched over the latest report from whomever was sending him intel--Natasha, probably. Maybe Fury. 

“Steve, my man, it’s a beautiful day. You have got to get out of here.” 

Steve didn’t even looked up, just smiled vaguely and waved a hand at Sam. “I’m almost done reading this. I might go on a run after, there’s nothing new in this file, nothing I can really do yet.” He signed and ran a hand through his bright hair, and even from the doorway Sam could see the tired shadows on his face. “I’ll stop by Whole Foods on the way back. Ribs OK for dinner?” 

“No,” Sam said, and the refusal was odd enough that Steve immediately looked up at him. “No,” he said again. “No ribs. No run. I meant you should get out, do something fun, something totally different. Steve, you have been tugging on this thread so hard it might choke you. You need to take a break.” 

“I can’t,” he said, shaking his head, looking at Sam with that pathetic twist to his mouth. “You know why-” 

“I know,” Sam interrupted. “I do, and I get it. Well, sort of. But I also know you can’t help Barnes if you’re exhausted. Hell, you’re more likely to kill yourself this way than you are to find him.” He let that sink in for a minute, watching Steve’s face harden into those stubborn lines he knew so well. He debated telling him for a moment, but knew Steve had no self control here, that he would joyously burst into that studio. They couldn’t afford another catastrophic fight in public. Sam didn’t think Steve could stand to see Bucky run again. He sighed, deliberately loud, and added. “Steve, I’m tired, too. Let’s take a break man, do something fun for once. Get our minds off things for just a few hours. Please.” 

He saw the moment Steve folded, those shoulders rounding down. “I’m sorry, Sam, I’m used to running hard. I didn’t think of how you must feel. Sure, we can go out for a bit. What did you have in mind?” 

Sam smiled wide. “This is out of total left park, but I saw something today that I would pay good money to watch you do. Just remember, man, you totally owe me. I’ve saved your ass more than once.” 

“That’s true,” Steve replied, eyebrows rising. “But now I’m scared. What is it you want me to do?” 

“Steve, my man, let’s go dancing.”


	3. Dancing with the Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A still-not-completely-figured-out Shrunkyclunks AU. I think I really just wanted to imagine Steve on Dancing with the Stars, with Bucky as one of the dancers. Because...who wouldn't want that?! Even Sam Wilson wants that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All respectful feedback appreciated...and I still do not have an outside editor. Woops. 
> 
> Also, I have no idea how to describe dancing, so just...go with it.

Steve comes back from his morning run with Sam in tow and his door already unlocked. They exchange a look, realizing that neither have weapons. Sam nods and Steve takes the lead, shouldering the door. 

Natasha looks up, expression bored, from Steve’s favorite arm chair. “This run was 8 minutes slower than yesterday’s, Cap. Your age is starting to show.” 

“Natasha,” he greets, sharing an exasperated glance with Sam, who just walks through to the kitchen. 

She smiles and he’s immediately worried. He gives up getting his chair and just collapses onto the couch. Sam passes by, handing him a water. Steve drains it as Sam and Natasha greet each other, only tuning back in when they fall quiet. When she sees he has his attention again, she lays a black folder on the coffee table. Then she draws another and hands it to Sam. 

Who immediately picks it up, opens it, and starts laughing. 

Steve, who was gearing up to interrogate Natasha on the source of the mission (he noticed the SHIELD logo faintly embossed on the folders and who knows who is really running that operation nowadays), is now a different kind of worried. 

Natasha is smirking faintly. “Nat, what-” 

“As much as I’m enjoying this,” she interrupts, smiling, “and I am enjoying this, this mission is serious, Steve.” She lets the smile fade from her eyes. “It’s Hydra. One of the last traces.” 

He clenches his jaw and picks up the folder. “So this is from Fury.” 

“Among others,” she says. 

He lets his frustration color his tone, “How sure are we?” 

“Very.” 

“Well, I don’t even care,” Sam interjects. “I’m in. I’m so in.” Natasha winks at him. Steve’s foreboding deepens. 

He opens the folder and spends a minute or two reading the cover sheet. “Undercover? I’m hardly an unknown agent…” and then he reads the rest of the sheet. “What is Dancing With the Stars?” 

Sam bursts out laughing. 

 

******   
Steve had never been particularly subtle and the recon he remembered from the war was from a much greater distance, or ended up with him smashing his way in anyway. A spy’s recon was different, required a stealth he had never really had, so he decided to just be obvious about it. The dance studios were relatively close and sometimes used by other pairs, and he could always just claim he’d come to the wrong one. 

It was late morning, the sun slanting in honey-warm and no one was in the lobby when he entered but he could hear low, slow tones that reminded him of the jazz numbers they used to play in the dance halls. Looks like Bucky was getting an early start. Perfect. Steve slouched down in a chair, pulled a book from his bag (he was already reading, always trying to catch up), and made sure that he could see the dance floor through the open door. He could be casual, look how casual he could be--if only Sam and Nat were here to see. 

Bucky was at the music player in the corner, though Steve couldn’t see what he was doing. Seemed innocuous enough; no one else was in there with him,so far as Steve could tell. He continued to fidget with something and Steve tried not to be obvious in his watching, though it would have hardly mattered; Bucky didn’t look up.The smooth, jazzy music got louder, lyrics he didn’t recognize but a feel he did, and Bucky began to sway. 

He pivoted, hips swaying, and shrugged off his sweatshirt, flinging it as he flung himself in a lazy circle. Underneath he had on only a tight black tank top and the ropey scars up and down his shoulder and arm caught the light as he spun again, and once more. His hips and feet were moving to the beat, back and forth and his whole body was fluid, sticky like molasses, sweet and hot and honestly… 

Honestly, it was good that Bucky was absorbed in the music because if he had bothered to open his eyes, to look about, he would have seen Steve staring. 

Steve remembered the dance halls before the experiments and the war, how the air had been hot and humid and there had been hundreds of bodies twirling and swinging to the band. Most people had been artless but happy, joyous in the few carefree hours they could spend on the floor. But Steve remembered the men and women who had really danced. Their energy was magnetic and Steve had always felt entranced watching them, the sway of their bodies too powerful to ignore. It was art and sex and magic and he had always been so susceptible to them, man and woman alike. Peggy exuded that energy like some people breathed. 

Bucky danced with it. His skin was wet with sweat by now, glowing in the morning light and he was extending his arms to an absent partner, drawing their hips in and undulating his in closer, shoulders dipping and rising with a twist, a dip, back rippling as he spun away and folded to the floor, writhing against it and pushing himself forward, up again and away, feet slow and stalking, hips swaying, eyes finally open but hooded and far away. 

Steve felt like he was sweating and his mouth was so dry but he couldn’t look away. A lock of hair fell in Bucky’s face as he dipped his head; Steve’s palms itched. The song crawled to a heavy end, sax wailing and Bucky ended in the middle of the floor, chest heaving gently and head down. 

Steve was still staring when the dancer finally looked up, and their eyes locked. Steve still couldn’t look away. 

For a moment Bucky didn’t react, then he raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, Captain.” 

“Steve,” the blonde croaked and immediately winced, swallowed, tried again. “Just Steve, please. I’m not in uniform.” 

A slow smile raised the corners of Bucky’s lips. “You can take the uniform off the man…” he trailed off and the smile stayed on his face but his blue eyes were intense on Steve’s face. “Good morning then, just Steve. To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

The awkward, stuttering answer wasn’t entirely faked when he said, “Well, I thought Sharna said to meet here. We need to work on some steps for the Rumba, I can’t seem to get the footwork right, but I think maybe I have the wrong studio. But you were dancing and I didn’t want to interrupt…” He trailed off and shrugged and hoped that the red flush on his face would be put down to embarrassment at his mistake.

“I just talked to Sharna this morning; she said you all weren’t practicing because she had a doctor’s appointment. Didn’t she reschedule with you?” 

“She might have,” he said, pulling out the phone SHIELD had issued him and opening it, not having to feign the look of confusion. He still hadn’t quite figured out this new century’s technologies. “I haven’t really gotten the hang of using this thing.” 

“My grandfather could never figure out his either,” Bucky said and there was a twinkle in his eyes. 

Steve scowled. “Yeah, never heard the old man jokes before.” 

“You make it so easy.” Bucky was laughing now and Steve struggled not to smile back. Eventually the silence faded into awkwardness and Steve stood, shrugging on his bag. He’d seen enough this morning to give Nat a report anyway. 

“Sorry for interrupting, I’ll just get out of your way.” 

“I could just help you, you know.” 

He turned back and Bucky had moved to the doorway, leaning against it with his arms crossed. His left arm and shoulder were still bare and he acted as if the raised, thick scars which covered almost his entire left shoulder and upper arm weren’t there. Steve knew they had to hurt, knew from reading his file that they sometimes made dancing hard, but Bucky didn’t seem ashamed or even aware of them. His confidence was so cocksure, but Steve saw his eyes flick down and back up, following his own gaze, and saw, too, the flicker of doubt cross the dancer’s face. 

Steve cleared his throat and made sure to focus only on his face. “Wouldn’t that be cheating?” 

Insouciant, Bucky shrugged. “Eh, our dances are only kinda a secret anyway. And my sister Becca might just kill me if she knew I gave up a chance to dance with Steve Rogers.”


	4. Steve jumps after Bucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I think all Stucky fans have written a version of this: Steve jumps off the train after Bucky. I decided to make it happy-ish, and allow Steve to save Bucky before the 70 years of torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, unedited, and there are definitely parts I want to revise, but...I'm going to put it out there anyway. Vague warnings for violence, missing limb, etc. Nothing unexpected or even as graphic as the movies, but be warned just in case.

It only took him a moment, wind whistling in his ears and his own shout echoing off of the mountain, to make the decision to jump off of the train. He couldn’t see Bucky anymore, but that didn’t matter--his friend was down there somewhere and if there was even a chance that he had survived, Steve would leap after him. 

He could barely think as he plummeted, skin icy-numb with snow and wind pushing at him, and prayers came and went, half-finished, Oh God, whoever’s listening, please, please, please… 

He didn’t know if he was pleading for his own life, or for Bucky’s. 

The fall was fast, and his descent long, and it seemed like he saw the rocky ground coming years before he hit. His body calculated before his mind, twisting so that his shield would land first. The impact punched the air from his gut and searing pain raced up his side as he slid and bumped down the side of the canyon. Eventually he rolled, his shield slipping on the ice, and rocks scoring into him like bullets. 

He didn’t really have time to feel the pain. It was there; he knew it was there, but he was still falling. Surviving was a hope, at this point. But he thought of that grenade at training camp, his own absolute certainty that he would give his life for those people--and knowing that he had saved Peggy had been enough. Knowing, now, that he was stronger, bigger, better, and that he had a chance, and that that chance could save his best friend...what else could he do but keep on rolling, uniform tearing, bones breaking, skin bleeding?

Eventually blackness shuttered down over his eyes; he thought that maybe he had been falling so long night had fallen. He slept.   
****   
He woke up in violet light, back against a tree, shield several feet away, and still alive beneath the snow drift that had built around him. He tried to move but a thousand pains screamed up at him and he stopped. Dr. Erskine’s smiling face crossed his mind, and he smiled back, up at the sky. What a serum, what a man. He was alive. 

He tried to see, just from looking, where he was and how long he had been out. The violet light coloring the winter forest around him a dark, bruising blue, was the light of dusk. Several hours lost, then. But he could still see the tracks from here, the train long gone but its path snaking above him. 

He was probably less than five miles from wherever Bucky had landed. The wind picked up, shrieking in the mountain, and in it he heard Bucky’s scream and couldn’t sit still any longer. The pain crackled up along his nerves, but he breathed as deeply as he could and pushed through. He was healing; he could feel it. Buck might not be so lucky. Buck might already be… 

He gritted his teeth, a scream of pain battering at his jaws, and heaved up. Ribs broken, he coughed up a hunk of blood as he limped to his shield. His fingers weren’t broken, but his arm was, so he heaved it onto his back despite the way it put pressure on the deep cuts there. They would heal. 

The train had been going west, so he would go east, back along its route. Bucky would not have landed far from the tracks, the cliff face sheer enough that he might have missed hitting it, and if Steve just followed the track back, he would find him. 

He had to find him, there was no other choice. Either he was alive, and Steve could save him, or he was gone, and Steve could take him home. 

What should have been a short walk for Captain America was instead a long, grueling trudge through thick snow. Steve felt like he was little Stevie from Brooklyn again, air rattling past a half-collapsed lung and every step heavy as lead. He remembered one winter when he could barely walk at all, the cold air seizing his lungs every time he went outside, and Bucky had had to work extra hours every day to get him medicine, to get them food. He was always tired, but he smiled every time he walked in the door. “Glad to see you’re still kicking around, ya little punk.” 

“Can’t leave you to yourself,” Steve would rasp, every time. “Someone’s gotta be the brains of the operation.”

One night, instead of laughing, Bucky had just smiled and sat down on their ratty little couch next to him, the whole frame tilting a bit with his weight, “We take care of each other, right Steve?” 

Steve had frowned, puzzled, “Yeah, Buck, always.” 

“Good,” he replied softly, and rustled his hand through Steve’s hair, getting up to put something on for dinner. 

“Always, Buck, always,” Steve said now, into the cold wind, remembering all of those times Bucky had breathed for him, with him, and worked for him and come home to him and been everything he couldn’t be. 

His turn, now. 

He pushed on as long as he could, but eventually the full veil of darkness fell and his body was simply too exhausted to move on. He shuffled into a small copse of towering pines, curling up as best as he could between the massive trunks and his shield, eyes closing and heart beating to the same rhythm of his unfinished prayers. Let me find him, let me take care of him.   
****   
The next day he woke feeling only like he’d been in a bad back alley fight rather than a tumble down a mountain. He could walk much faster. He had had only the barest of rations with him, not expecting an arduous march, and even those had been lost in the tumble down the cliff. His body clenched against him in pain and in hunger, his enhanced metabolism knitting up his flesh and bones and demanding energy in return. He pushed through the pangs; he’d gone hungry before and hunger was nothing, nothing if he couldn’t- 

Before him on the snow a dark shape bloomed. Blood. So much blood, a day old at least and brown-black and he could see the shape of a body, the vague lumps of where a head had hit, an arm. Steve dropped to his knees, shoveling frantically through the snow with his hands, looking for Bucky, looking for anything. He shouted, muted in the dark trees around, sound sucked up by snow and needle. 

He wasn’t here. He wasn’t here! Maybe he was alive, had limped away for help like Steve had…

But as Steve stood again, ready to search, he saw a deep furrow farther ahead, a dragging path, dotted here and again with those sickly brown patches. A body, still bleeding, dragged away in the night. 

Suddenly he wasn’t hungry anymore, felt little pain and no cold at all. Bucky’s heart had still been beating when someone had taken him, and they had left a trail not thinking that Captain America himself would come hurtling through the winter mountains after them. 

He smiled and picked up a jog.  
*****   
There had been little hope to begin with that friendly troops had found Bucky; they were beyond enemy lines, deep in the quagmire of the European front, and even if the allies had been here, the tracks were leading away from where the Howling Commandos had made camp. Hydra, or the Nazis, then, neither a good option for a wounded American soldier. 

Even worse for Captain America’s best friend, if they knew who he was. 

Steve, as he ran over the snow, tried not to think of what shape his friend would be in, or what further horrors he might be facing if Hydra had found him. He had been tortured once before, and then he had only been a nameless, handsome face, one enemy who had survived whatever they had done to him. Now he was Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, best sniper in the army, second in command of the Howling Commandoes, and Captain America’s closest friend and ally. He almost laughed when he prayed for Nazis. 

But as he came to a road and saw the squat shadow of a stone building in the far distance, humor drained from him. The grinning, tentacled skull of Hydra grimaced down at him from flags snapping above. Zola. He must have seen Bucky fall, somehow, and gone to retrieve him. What luck, his little lab rat falling back into his hands. 

Steve closed his jaw against the icy nausea in his gut. He knew Gabe would have retreated, somehow, followed the exit plan, when Steve hadn’t met up with him at the head of the train. He felt bad, now, wishing that Gabe hadn’t, that he had at least one friend here to fight with him. Hell, he wished all of the Commandos were here with him, ready to throw themselves against terrible odds again. But they weren’t. He thought they had probably made it back to base by now, had called in to the SSR. He sent a brief thought of regret and apology to Peggy, hoping she wasn’t mourning him. She would understand, though, better than anyone, why he had had to jump. And why, even now, he jogged back into the trees, striking a diagonal line up the hills and towards the squat, ugly lump of the Hydra base ahead. 

There were few guards on the outskirts, Red Skull trusting their isolation and the massive stone walls, the imposing iron gate guarding what looked to be the only above ground entrance. An army would fail to get in here, no matter how much they battered at the door or flung themselves at the walls. 

But Steve wasn’t an army; he was just a man. So, he snuck around the perimeter, making a mental map of the wall and the guards, of where the land dipped to hide him. There were no other entrances, or, if there were, they were on the other side of the mountain that the base hugged up to, and he didn’t have time to scale the peak. But there were small tunnels, well sealed with heavy grates. For drainage, Steve assumed, but it didn’t matter; they were his way in. 

He waited until night had fallen again, trying not to think too hard about the size of the blood stain Bucky had left miles back. He had to remember that his friend’s heart had still been beating. “Wait for me, Buck,” he murmured as the sun began to fade behind the mountains, sky washed dark. The guards changed shifts every two hours, and the grate he had chosen sat in a small dip; if he sidled up to it just right, only one guard could see him. 

And that was only if he thought to look. When the guard moved down the wall, Steve slid into the small divot and plastered himself against the cold stone, hands feeling around the grate. It was old and heavy, well bolted into the rock. 

But, one screw, nearly thick as Steve’s forearm, wasn’t flush. Its head stuck out maybe half an inch, even though it did not move when Steve twisted and pried at it. He had room to work. He huddled there most of the night, freezing and nearly blind under the canopy of the old forest, but he kept at the bolt until his hands bled. Finally, as light began to color the sky again, the bolt twisted with a heavy groan. He darted a glance up the wall, listening for a warning shout, but no one sounded a call. He grasped the bolt again and kept twisting. It came out half an hour later, and he wedged his shield in, sweating against the weight but bending the metal just enough. It was a crack, but he could fit. He pushed in and immediately started a crouching run down the dark tunnel. 

He didn’t know where he was going, or where Bucky was, but he knew that somewhere this tunnel had to connect to a sublevel or a basement, that there was a way in. Eventually the tunnel curved softly upwards, light from ahead adding a grey gloom. Steve pushed on and eventually he saw crude metal steps bolted into a wall, a small ledge maybe twenty feet up. The tunnel curved on but he stopped, hauling himself up the ladder as quickly as he could and peering over the ledge. There were boxes and barrels on the other side of a much smaller grate, and even though there was light, the only sound was the small skittering of rodents in ignored corners. This he could work with. 

In much less time than it had taken him to get into the tunnel, he found himself standing warily in a small, dry stockroom, what looked to be rations and munitions stacked high around him. There was a door at the far end of the room and he made his way to it, listening and then opening it slowly. Empty hallway, good. 

He needed to find someone, a lone guard to beat questions out of, or a control room, or a map. Anything. If he was going to find Bucky he needed information and luck--he would be grateful for a little bit of either. 

Someone up there liked him, because not ten minutes of sneaking down empty corridors later, he spied a bored looking German man, clad in Hydra black, leaning against a wall next to a steel door, hand resting lazily upon his holster but eyes half closed and dim. Easy pickings. Steve deliberately scuffed his feet, the guard snapping up and barking “Halt! Wer da?” Steve knocked the hastily drawn Luger from the guard’s hand and clocked him right in the face. He went down like a sack of flour, and Steve dragged him back around the corner. 

While he waited for the man to wake up, vaguely hoping that he spoke at least a little English, as Steve’s German was just embarrassing, he rifled through the man’s uniform. A pack of smokes, what looked to be a dirty novel, and a folded up paper that turned out to be just what Steve needed: a rough map of the base. “What are the chances of that?” Steve asked the unconscious man. He didn’t answer, but Steve smiled at him anyway, glad that there were some enemies that just couldn’t remember their way around. 

Steve hadn’t hit the man too hard, and so he stirred a few minutes later, groaning and clutching his head. He blinked groggily, rolling to a sitting position, and froze when he saw the large American before him, ostentatious shield between them and his own luger resting atop it. “Hi there,” Steve said, “any chance you speak English?” 

The guard paled, swallowing hard, and nodded. 

“Great! I’m here looking for a friend. Any chance you can tell me where they might have put an American prisoner here? He was wounded.” 

“If I tell you anything,” the man said, looking frightened but trying to square his shoulders in the shadow of Captain America, “the Red Skull will kill me.” 

Steve grimaced and cocked the gun, “Look, I’m not usually prone to murder, but that man I mentioned matters a lot to me, and I will shoot you if you don’t help me. This is war, after all.” And he asked again, softly, “Where is he?” 

For a long moment the two men just stared at each other, but eventually the German slumped, looking young as his eyes fell. “There is an infirmary, on one of the upper levels, and a lab. Dr. Zola had someone taken there yesterday. That is all I know.” 

Steve smiled, suddenly bright, said, “Thanks!” And clobbered the man over the side of the head. “Sorry kid,” he murmured, tucking the gun at his waist and stepping over the unconscious German and back into the corridor. 

It was still early, so not much of the base was stirring. It seemed to be only inhabited by a skeleton crew, anyway. Steve passed many empty rooms, and only had to knock out ten men on his way to the upper levels. He almost stopped a few floors up as he found himself staring at a room full of those strange, glowing weapons he had seen at Azzano, and a terrifying number of land mines stacked almost haphazardly in a pile. He didn’t have time to take notes or do anything, so he merely mentally marked the room’s position and contents before making his way up the stairs as quickly as he could. 

The staircase narrowed as he climbed, the walls older and rougher. The Germans had built strongholds around castles and older fortifications before, so Steve supposed the remains of some ancient building could be hiding in the Hydra base. It would certainly explain the dizzying claustrophobia of the cold, stone stairs, and why he could hear faint echoes from above him but couldn’t make out what was being said, the curling walls distorting the sound. 

He heard a deep, pained moan, and climbed faster, his shield already in front of him. 

He burst through a door at the top, expecting to have to fight off dozens of men, and maybe even Red Skull himself. But the only people in the room were Zola, in a white coat and leaning over a table, and a still, pale figure on the slab below him. 

Bucky. 

“Get away from him,” Steve said, lowly. 

Zola spun around, cowering into himself but not moving. “How,” he stuttered, “how did you get here? What are you doing?! Wachter!” 

Steve didn’t smile. “They’re not coming, not yet anyway.” He could see the little scientist’s eyes, searching, but Steve didn’t see any weapons in the room that could really hurt him, so he quickly shifted his focus to Bucky, who wasn’t moving. 

A hot wave of nausea cramped his stomach. There was something wrong, a blank, empty space beneath the blanket… “Jesus, Buck, your arm…” 

The only response was a quiet moan, and Bucky’s face turning towards him, eyes closed, like he was searching out warm sunlight. Steve’s eyes watered and his fists clenched. 

Zola was still in the way. Steve shrugged his shield onto his back and snarled, “I said get out of the way.” 

The jowls of the man’s chin were quivering, but he didn’t move. “This man is a very important part of my work, and I will not just give him up. The guards will catch you and when Red Skull arrives-” 

“He’s not here? That’s good.”

The German cringed at his mistake. “He is coming.” 

“We’ll be gone before then,” Steve promised, looming closer. He made it a point to swing as hard as he could, his fist most likely smashing Zola’s cheekbones to pieces. He hurriedly stepped over the crumpled form, pressing into Bucky’s side. HIs friend was still unconscious, pale, sweating, and barely moving. 

And his left arm, it was gone. Steve pushed aside the crushing anger and sorrow he felt for Bucky, the guilt that yet again he had hurt himself following Steve into a fight. They didn’t have time for that now. “Bucky,” he gently shook his friend, but Bucky just moaned, turning towards his voice again but not rousing. Steve tucked the sheet around the (now, strangely,) smaller man and hoisted him up in his arms. He strode out of the room and down the stairs, repeating his now familiar pleas to Dear God, let this work, let me save him. 

At the bottom of the stairs Bucky stirred, turning his face into Steve’s chest and then groaning, eyes flickering open. “Steve?” He rasped. 

“Yeah, yeah Buck,” Steve almost choked around tears, happy to see those grey eyes. “I got ya.” 

Bucky smiled wanly and closed his eyes again. Steve wanted to just look at him, to be grateful that his heart was beating and his chest rising with breath, but he heard the clatter of boots below him and knew that they didn’t have any time. He stayed on the landing, mind desperately seeking over options. “Hang on, ya jerk,” he whispered, tightening his hold, “I got a crazy idea.” 

He went down as fast as he could, trying to get to the storeroom he had seen earlier without hurting his burden. When he reached the small room, he laid Bucky down gently, hidden behind several large boxes, and began to search. He found a small box and gave a quiet cheer when he opened it to reveal several egg-shaped grenades with colored fuses. He grabbed one and rushed back to Bucky, lifting him up with one arm. He hoped he wasn’t hurting him, but for right now they just had to move. He dragged them to the top stair, pulled the fuse, threw the grenade, and hoisted Bucky up, running now as fast he could.

Distance and protection. Ten seconds was a long time for Captain America, but he was weighed down, so he compromised and got them into a small, solid stone chamber several flights down before he felt and heard a dull boom, dust shaking down from the ceiling. He tucked them both into a corner, himself on top of Bucky and the shield covering his back, and waited. 

He sent up a small thanks to whomever had so carelessly stacked land mines in a room with hand grenades as the building shook around them, pieces of ceiling falling down around them, and several shocks shaking the walls. Steve had chosen well--this room was on the opposite wall from the blasts, and shielded by several thick layers of stone floors--but still they were in a dangerous spot. A chunk of rock hit Steve hard on the shoulder, knocking the breath from him, and he worried that he hadn’t just distracted the Germans, but had also cut off his own escape route. When the dust had relatively settled, he shrugged off the rubble and ran a quick check. He was hurting, and his ears were ringing, but he was fine. Bucky was unconscious again, and still pale and too warm, but he was breathing and Steve couldn’t see any injury, other than… 

The nausea slammed his gut again, his own arm aching, but he shrugged it off again and picked up Bucky, hurrying for the stairs. They were treacherous, walls leaning and steps jutting up at new angles, but he could navigate them, and they were on the ground floor in moments. German soldiers were running iin confusion, and Steve took advantage of that and of the dust covering him in a fine gray pallor, to get them through unnoticed. He hunched down over Bucky, concealing his height, and muttering to anyone who approached about the scientist needing help. Zola must have mattered to Red Skull, as the soldiers who heard him immediately began racing up the stairs to rescue him. 

Steve ducked down an empty, undamaged corridor, following a breeze to a small door which opened onto a courtyard. He could see fire and smoke from across the base, the air dingy even over here. His impromptu efforts had knocked down one of the base’s towers, and a portion of the wall had been taken with it. He made for the gates instead. 

A single guard remained at the massive iron doors, anxiously watching the distant chaos. Steve didn’t even bother with subtlety or stealth, just kicked the man, knocking his chin back with an audible snap, and searching for the gate mechanism as the man crumpled. There was a large lever to his right, and he set Bucky down to strain against it, hoping it opened one of the doors. He was rewarded with a cutting screech, and the right door swung open. “All right, Buck, time to get this show on the road,” he said, once again scooping up his silent package. He didn’t look back as he ran into the forest.   
***   
He knew they had to find shelter and fast. And he needed a line, a radio, something, so he could try the Commandos, try Peggy, try Phillips even. They were too far away from the rendezvous point; Bucky would never make it. He had started to shake, trembling from the cold while his skin burned hot, dry of sweat. Steve’s mind raced across the maps he knew, imprints of Hydra bases, rivers, railways, landmarks flitting in and out. If they were where he thought they were, there was a small village along the French-German border, about five miles from here. He should be able to reach it before night fell again. There was also a road, not much more than one paved lane, but it led in and out of the mountain passes, and there was a chance he would find someone driving along it.

The odds of finding a friendly face in the village were slim. This area had been German territory for years, and while the resistance was strong, fear of the Nazis was stronger. Going into a town was dicey business, and Steve didn’t have enough energy or time left for a long fight. 

But one simple carjacking...that he could do. A quick diversion and a punch to the face and he had a way to get Bucky out of here, and hopefully a way to call the cavalry. He looked down at the drawn, sleeping face tucked against his shoulder. “Sorry, buddy, I know it isn’t exactly the right thing to do, but desperate times.” There aren’t any lines between us anymore, he thought but didn’t say, not even in the quiet here. No lines I won’t cross for you. 

No one came for them, as he trudged through the snow, Bucky held close. He figured no one had really known he was there, and if Zola was still alive he probably didn’t even have a clue as to where Steve had gone. They had some time, a buffer, but it was thin and fleeting, and that knowledge pushed his steps on faster. If they were to catch an unsuspecting motorist, the time was now. 

Bucky’s heartbeat stayed faint but steady, and as far as Steve could tell he wasn’t bleeding. Zola must have cleaned him up a bit, patched his wounds. Steve tried not to wonder how bad the arm must have been. Instead he trudged on until he saw the road ahead, blinking in and out between trees. He had never been so happy to hear the roar of an engine before. Carefully, slowly, he set Bucky down, trying to cover him as best he could. “I won’t be long,” he promised. 

But he cursed when he saw the road. There was a long convoy of muddy green jeeps and trucks, the red and black slash of a swastika against their hoods. Well, he had wanted a ride. He waited until he saw the last car in the line, a small covered jeep, and when it rattled past, he threw his shield. It missed, but the driver startled, swerving, and the car jumped off the road and half into a ditch. Steve leaped up, jumping onto the driver before he could shout out. With one punch he was out and with one shove he was sprawled in the snow. Steve checked the back--no one, just boxes. With half an eye to the convoy disappearing around a bend, Steve began to shove the cargo out, making just enough room for a secure bed. He dashed out to get Bucky, stowing him as safely as he could. 

He revved the engine and drove, checking every mile that Bucky was still breathing, and that the road was empty. A fork opened up as the mountains softened into hills, and he followed his mental maps to neutral Swiss territory and the closest SSR safehouse. 

With an engine, rather than just Steve’s legs, they made the journey, bypassing checkpoints by driving off road, in less than a day and a half. Bucky remained asleep, pale and still, but Steve almost cried every time he heard the faint tattoo of his friend’s heartbeat. Steve smiled as the jeep finally drove into familiar territory, almost laughing at the incongruous little cottages in the picturesque village. “Bucky, you tough bastard, we’re almost there. You just keep on holding on, OK?”

Men and women were starting to come out of the houses, none of them in uniform, but he recognized the alert gazes of SSR and resistance agents, and he hoped that at least one of them watched the movies. Or read the comics. Or the newspapers. 

He brought the jeep to a rumbling stop and jumped down, addressing himself to the nearest person. It was a middle aged woman, hair in soft curls but a hard curve to her mouth. He raised his hands, shifting the shield so it was more visible, and said, “Hi, I’m Captain Steve Rogers of the Howling Commandos. You may know me as Captain America. I need some help for a wounded soldier,” he shrugged a shoulder towards the truck, “and I need someone to call Peggy Carter.”   
***   
He had been moving for so long that when he sat down he felt restless, his legs antsy. His arms didn’t know how not to carry Bucky’s weight. He sat at a small wooden table in a sunny kitchen and ate and drank mechanically, eyes on the door through which a little old woman had led the men carrying Bucky, snapping at Steve that no, not even Captain America was allowed to interfere with her work, thank you very much, and that she would be done when she was done. 

Agents came in and out, either ignoring him or asking him for information. He gave brief mission reports, too distracted by the closed door to give them his full attention, and eventually he just couldn’t sit still anymore, couldn’t stand waiting. 

“I’m sorry,” he said to the man in front of him, who had been pressing him for information on the HYDRA base from which he had rescued Bucky and left Zola. The man blinked up at him from his crouch over the portable typewriter. “I need to stretch my legs, and make sure someone has contacted the SSR. Please excuse me.” 

He left the man’s protests behind and marched out into the little village. It seemed so normal; men and women and even a child or two were walking up and down the street or tending to yards. It looked like any town, pared down and dulled by the war, but still breathing. He could have almost pretended that this was just some sleepy Swiss village, but he saw the alert eyes, the weapons hidden at hips and boots. 

Plus, he could hear a faint crackle and angry Japanese filtering out of a cracked window several doors down. He followed the sounds to a stone house and opened the door to a normal sitting room. Empty. But there was a door to the basement, slightly ajar, and Steve followed it down to a room shockingly like the SSR base in London, full of maps and smoking men.

In the far corner the middle aged woman who had first helped him was snapping into a radio, and Steve almost cried when he heard Morita’s voice, fuzzed by static. “The Commandos have higher clearance than you,” he heard the San Franciscan say, “and we wanna know where Sergeant Barnes and the Cap are. How they are. Get Agent Carter on the line-” 

“I told you,” the woman said with a heavy German accent, “she is not here. If you want to know anything you must use the proper codes-” 

“I’m afraid Morita never bothered with the codes, ma’am,” Steve said from behind her. He was impressed that she didn’t even flinch at his sudden closeness. He held out his hand for the radio mic. “May I?” 

She frowned but stepped back. “Of course, Captain,” she said and spun on her heel, walking to a group of men huddled over a map dotted with flags. He smiled and missed Peggy something fierce. “Morita, it’s me.” 

“Jesus, finally,” his comms specialist said, voice warm with relief. “Are you all right? Gabe said you jumped off a train.” 

“I’m fine.” He heard Morita snort and knew he owed his men the full story, but he needed them here yesterday. “Did everyone make it back to the rendezvous point?” 

“Yeah, everyone but you and the Sergeant. Is he…?”

Steve sighed. “He’s alive. Wounded bad, but alive.” The line crackled, silent. 

“What are our orders, Cap?” Morita finally asked. 

“I need you boys here. I damaged a HYDRA base on the way here, but I doubt they’re cleared out. This base wasn’t on the map. We’ve got some more work to do, when Buck is healed up.” 

He could hear Dum Dum and Falsworth vaguely in the background, exclaiming over the HYDRA base, but Morita just said, “Send us your location and we’ll be there in a hurry.” He conveyed the coordinates, wished them luck, and cut the line. Suddenly he was tired, and wanted nothing more than to sit at Bucky’s bedside and catch a nap in a chair, but when he turned around the steely-faced woman was waiting for him. With that frown, he wondered if she was related to Colonel Phillips… 

“Captain,” she said, motioning him over, “if you could spare a moment, there is some information we need from you.” 

“No disrespect, ma’am, but I’m bone tired, and I’d like to check on my Sergeant.” 

“I need only a moment,” she repeated, giving him no quarter and corralling him over to the middle table with only her stern brown eyes. “I will let you rest, but it would be of great use to us if you could pinpoint the HYDRA base you encountered on the map. As you said to your man, it is unknown to us.” 

He raised an eyebrow at her blatant admission of eavesdropping but didn’t mention it, just turning to consider the map. He followed the line of the river and the forest, trying to remember distances from the road. He found a vee in the mountains and pointed. “Here, roughly. I didn’t have a map with me, but I’d bet it was within a few miles of here.” She motioned a Lieutenant over and took the pin he offered, stabbing it into the spot he had marked. 

“Thank you, Captain Rogers. You are dismissed.” And she turned the stiff line of her uniformed back to him. 

He felt like Bucky when he sketched a lazy salute at her and drawled, “Sir, yes sir.” He would feel guilty, later, for the lack of respect, but he was tired now, so he went back upstairs and onto the strange peace of the street, right back to the door between him and Bucky. 

The little old woman, two feet shorter than him and with hair as grey as steel, opened the door on the first knock. “He is resting,” she chided him. 

“Is he..?” 

Her face softened as she took in the rings under his eyes, the pallor of exhaustion under his skin. “He is well, all things considered. His arm has been operated on, likely to remove damaged tissue. It is well that they did this, as it stopped the bleeding.” Steve felt that familiar push of nausea again. His arms clenched in sympathy but he nodded. 

“May I see him?” 

She regarded him carefully, and he was surprised when she laid a small hand on his clenched fist, the skin papery and whisper thin. “Yes, but you both must rest.” 

This time his, “Sir, yes sir,” was genuine, and she just frowned playfully at him and ushered him into another room. There was only a table with medical supplies on it, and a heavy bed. Bucky looked small and pale beneath the white sheets. 

It was odd, watching over Bucky’s bedside. He remembered many times when he had been the one exhausted and sick beneath the sheets, Bucky camping in a rickety chair and refusing to leave for days. Steve had always tried to get him to leave, protesting that he could take care of himself, but Buck had always just ruffled his hair and said, “Someone’s gotta look after ya, punk. You’re not leaving on my watch.” 

Steve leaned in and buried his fingers into dark, soft hair. “Not on my watch either, jerk.”   
***   
He woke to a terrible crick in the neck and a wry voice saying, “You shouldn’t sleep like that, Stevie, you’ll mess up your back.” 

“Buck,” he breathed, his heart racing to see his friend awake, tight smile and blue-gray eyes fixed on him. “You’re awake! Do you need anything? How are you? I should get the doctor…” 

Bucky laughed, and even though it was tired and thin, it was the best Steve had heard in a long time. “Slow down, bud. I’m fine. Well,” he shrugged his shoulders, the movement unbalanced, “as well as I can be I guess.” 

Steve paled and clenched his jaw, not really knowing how to deal with this. He had no idea what Bucky was feeling. The only thing he could grit out was, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t catch you, that I asked you to get on that train in the first place-” 

“Steven Grant Rogers,” Bucky snapped, eyes suddenly hard, “Getting on that train was my goddamned job, and you’re about as responsible for what happened as Mickey Mouse. I want to get HYDRA and Zola as much as you do. After Azzano,” he swallowed hard, “maybe more than you.” 

Steve bowed his head, “Ok, Buck, but I am sorry. I can’t imagine…” he swallowed, throat lurching. “I just can’t imagine.” 

Bucky sat up and the sheet slid down, revealing his tan shoulders and the white wrappings around the stump of his arm. He stared at it. “I knew,” he whispered, “I remember waking up and seeing Zola and him telling me he could replace it, make it better. I knew it was gone but I still can’t really believe it.” He didn’t look at Steve but the smile that crossed his face was gruesome. “Guess I won’t be much good as your sniper now.” 

“You weren’t much good before anyway,” Steve joked weakly. Bucky let out a startled laugh and shook himself, looking back at his friend. 

“Shut up, ya big lout. Why don’t you make yourself useful and tell me where we are, and how the hell we got here.” 

So, for the next hour or so, Steve regaled his best friend with the tale of their, frankly, terrifying experiences. People came in and out, checking on Bucky and bringing them both breakfast, but Steve kept on talking because right here, right now, joking and palling around with his best friend, this he knew how to do. 

What came next--that he had no idea how to handle. 

“Wait,” Bucky held up his hand, mouth half full and face stricken, “wait just a damn minute. You’re telling me you rescued me from a tower? Like I’m some damsel in distress?” 

Steve smiled, enjoying being the protector, the big guy for once. He had been reveling in the feeling since Azzano, that now he could pay back all those years of Bucky watching his six. Now the feeling made him feel vaguely dirty, but he smiled anyway. “You even fainted like one. Delicate princess that you are.” 

“Oh man,” Bucky sighed heavily, shaking his head. Dark hair curled down over his forehead and for a fleeting moment Steve thought that he sure was pretty enough to be a princess. He ignored the thought. “Please don’t tell the fellas that; I’ll never hear the end of it.” 

Dum Dum’s voice boomed through the open door, “Never hear the end of what, Barnes?” And suddenly the room was full of the Howling Commandos, all crowding around Steve and Barnes, clapping them on the back (or, in Bucky’s case, gently touching his right shoulder) and exclaiming over their continued health, dumb luck, and idiot antics. 

The Commandos filled the room with laughter and bravado, distracting Steve and Bucky from the heaviness of what lay behind and the fear of what lay ahead. Gabe told them all about his own daring leap from the train, Dernier told jokes in French and laughed uproariously when only Gabe got them, Dum Dum told them they owed him a crate of whiskey for the heart attack they’d caused him, and Morita complained about the angry German woman who ran this SSR outpost. Steve watched Bucky closely for signs of fatigue, and even though he could see the empty, dark flash of his eyes every time he thought the men weren’t looking, Bucky still lit up with a smile when Steve stayed close and the Commandos treated him as they always had. He still had a unit, still had a family. 

Finally the steely old woman who had nursed Bucky, “Just call me Dr. Rothschild,” she’d tittered when Gabe had flirted with her, scowled at them and tried to usher them out. Steve stayed, refusing to leave Bucky’s side for longer than it took to relieve himself. 

When he came back from giving the men orders to debrief with Morita’s “angry German woman”, Bucky was laying back down, eyes fixed on the ceiling. He didn’t move when Steve sat down. “You have to get him for me, Steve,” he said after a quiet pause. “You have to get Zola, Red Skull. What they’ve done-” his face hardened, muscles rippling up his jaw, “you’ve gotta go on.”

“We’re going on,” Steve said. 

Bucky scoffed and finally turned to look at him. “Look, Steve, I want nothing more than to stay with you and keep fighting the good fight, but I’m useless like this.” His eyes were shining and he shook his head. “This time it’s gotta be you leaving me behind.” 

“I’m not doing that,” Steve said, voice hard. “There’s got to be a way.” 

“I think I can help with that,” a soft, British voice said from the door and Steve stood up automatically as Peggy walked into the room. She smiled at him, and her gaze was soft on Bucky.   
“How did you get here so fast?” Steve asked, stepping to her side. He didn’t see Bucky look away. 

She looked up from under her lashes at him. “I know a certain man who likes to fly very fast airplanes, and he was just as eager to come here and help you two as I was.” 

“How is Howard?” 

“Oh, roguish and insufferable as always. However, he and I have spoken to Sergeant Barnes’s doctor-”

“This can’t be good,” Bucky murmured. 

She raised an eyebrow at him and Steve almost laughed when he looked sheepish. “And he is eager to test a theory. If, of course, you’re willing, Sergeant.” 

Steve and Bucky exchanged a look. I’m game if you are, it said. “Theory?” Steve asked. 

“Yes, he thinks he can build you an arm. A working arm, perhaps even better than your last.” 

The room was silent for a moment. “Zola said that’s what he was going to do,” Bucky murmured. He paled for a moment and Steve leaned in, hand hovering. But Bucky shook his head and looked up at Peggy. He looked like he had in unguarded moments since Azzano, those moments he had refused to tell Steve what had happened; he looked hard as stone. “If it has to be anyone, I’d rather it be the good guys making me into a machine. And if it means getting back in the fight, keeping Rogers here from being any more stupid,” he ignored Steve’s protests, “then I’ll do it.”


	5. Bucky in a Bakery AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I love bakeries, I love Bucky, I love Shrunkyclunks...so why not combine them? And then this happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for: Bucky is still missing an arm (surprise!), fireworks can be tough on PTSD, and over-enthusiasm for bakeries. 
> 
> Also, still not edited by anyone other than myself.

His neighborhood had been echoing with pops and fizzes and bangs since 6am, and he would much rather be in the bakery, sweating over a puff pastry than cowering at every sound in his tiny apartment. Books Bakery was probably the only small business open in Brooklyn on the 4th. He had expected, had even kind of hoped, that that would mean no one would show up. But he'd had a surprisingly steady flow of customers all day. Cupcakes for a picnic, a big cake for a family party, lemon bars for hot kids playing outside on a day off. Maybe he'd stay open on Thanksgiving, too. Holidays seemed to be food for business.

He thought of Becca's face if he told her he wouldn't be in for Thanksgiving and immediately nixed that idea. Her pout alone would kill him.

The bell up front chimed. “Ah fuck,” he blew hair out of his face, scooped up the folded dough against his chest. “Be right there!” He called in what he hoped was a friendly voice and cursed again as he struggled with the refrigerator. Finally he got it open, shoved the puff in, and hurried to the front.

At first he thought it was empty, but he saw a head with a hat on it just above the first lion of the display case. He cleared his throat.

“Oh, sorry!” A tall man, wearing a ball cap and sunglasses unfolded himself from his crouch. Even though he hunched over, shoulders rounded, Bucky could tell he was massive. He just managed to swallow his impressed whistle. “I was just looking.” The man said, looking faintly embarrassed behind his aviators.

“That's what they're there for, pal.” He could hear Becca sighing in disgust at his lack of customer service skills and tried to smile. It felt stiff, but the man smiled back. “What can I do for you?”

“I'm not sure you make this, because no one seems to anymore, at least not that I can find. But, who knows?” The man was still, too still, like he was holding himself from fidgeting by force. And he was on the cusp of blithering. Bucky felt so bad for him he almost put a hand out to Pat him on the shoulder, then he felt air up his empty sleeve and didn't.

“I make a lot of old-fashioned recipes, so I might. What you looking for?”

“Oh, yes, an apple cake, if you've got it.”

“I don't,” Bucky said and immediately the man seemed to curl in even more, like he was slowly deflating. Before the man could speak, and before Bucky could think better of it, he said, “But if you give me an hour I can whip one up for you.” 

The man looked up and his face, what Bucky could see of it behind the hat and glasses the man still had on, lit up. His smile was white, and just lopsided enough to be real. “You could? That would be amazing if it wouldn't be too much trouble!”

Bucky snorted but a tiny, honest smile sneaked onto his face without his permission. “Bud, cakes are always trouble, but this ones not so bad. You wanna come back for it?” 

The man scratched his neck, the smoke dim.inf a notch. Shame. “Can I just wait here? I have a book and I can sit out of the way?”

“Sure, if you want, seats by the window.” He waved with his left arm, saw the man's eyes dart to the other shoulder, and he immediately put his arm down. “Like I said, give me an hour.” The man nodded, finally took off his ball cap to show blond hair in a style he hadn't seen since his grandfather died, and quickly made his way to a window seat. 

Weird guy, Bucky thought, and retreated to the kitchen.


End file.
